PC Campus Culture Run Amok: The World Needs More Bret Weinsteins

Watching the social justice activists at Washington’s Evergreen State College over the past week is almost like watching a comedy routine. Or perhaps a parody of college campus life where the protesters don’t realize…the joke’s on them.

The unfolding events at Evergreen State represent the activist soul of the Democratic Party laid bare: the vanguard of the self-righteous social justice warrior crusaders, raging against imaginary enemies, seething with indignation at the most imperceptible slight.

The target of the shrill and petulant protesters? One biology professor Bret Weinstein, whose email sent them into a fit of rage.

What was his grievous offense you ask?

Weinstein had the audacity to question a “Day of Absence” in which white people were banned from setting foot on the Evergreen State campus.

In previous incarnations of the event, minority students and faculty vacated the campus for a day to attend discussions and workshops. Weinstein had no problem with that. This year, the event organizers changed things up: white people were encouraged (read: obligated) to vacate the college.

Weinstein, who in an interview with Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson described himself as “deeply progressive”, took issue with the ban, noting: “There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles…and a group encouraging another group to go away…the first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.”

It hardly sounds like the racist ravings of a Klansman or Neo-Nazi.

However, to the students who took over the campus and held college president George Bridges hostage, Weinstein’s email was the pinnacle of virulently insensitive bigotry. Their spirited response to Weinstein’s “oppression” of them is nothing short of heroic; in their minds they are Cesar Chavez, Che Guevara, and Nelson Mandela rolled up into one power-to-the-people student activist nutshell.

Yet, video-clips of the students’ encounter with Bridges and other campus administrators cast the incident in a rather less-favorable light.

Enter: the West Coast’s finest social justice warriors…

First demand for Bridges:

“All of us are students and have homework and projects and things due. Have you sent an email out to our faculty letting them know? What’s been done about that because we are all here on our own time…they need to be told that these assignments won’t be done on time, and we don’t need to be penalized for that.”

So…let me get this straight. The intense emotional strain of the protests that they are instigating, because they want to ban white students and faculty from campus, has incapacitated the social justice warriors abilities to complete homework assignments and projects? Are these protests going to be 24 hours a day 7 days a week? One would presume that even if they plan on spending the entire day barricading their president into his office, they could still complete their homework assignments at night.

After listening to student demands, an obviously befuddled Bridges pledges to look into the issues and largely cave to the campus crybabies, but asks for some time and space:

“I need some privacy folks, I’m sorry. I have claustrophobia.”

Dr. Bridge’s concerns are not met with sympathetic reaction from his young scholars.

An off camera voice informs him that, “We endure hate crimes on your campus every day, and we pay to be here.”

(Apparently objecting to a day in which white people are banned from campus is now a hate crime. It would be interesting to see what would happen if instead of “white people” the campus proposed to ban Jews, Muslims, gays, women, Asians, Latinos, African Americans, fill in the blank…but needless to say, the story would likely be quite different).

“Students of color have to work in threatening environments every day. Welcome. Welcome. Get to work.”

So…the message here is: because students of color supposedly endure a threatening environment at Evergreen State (widely regarded to be one of the most progressive “safe spaces” in higher education today) that it’s only fair to create a “threatening” environment for Bridges and the rest of the administration as well?

First and foremost, the protesters display a fundamental level of disrespect for authority. Their crass and flippant dialogue with the president of the college, George Bridges, is enough to induce the urge to cringe.

What would a potential employer think after watching this video? Are these individuals ever going to be able to be gainfully employed? If they find jobs, will these students treat their employers in the same fashion if they don’t like something in their workplace or don’t get what they want?

I attended two institutions of higher education: Hillsdale College and Washington University in St. Louis. During my time at those institutions, the student body called our college leaders Dr. Arnn and Chancellor Wrighton. My fellow students and I, regardless of political persuasion, would never have dreamed of treating a college or university president with the kind of blatant disrespect that these student activists are heaping upon Bridges.

One almost has to feel sorry for the man. He’s bending over to give the spoiled brats what they want, and it’s still not enough for them. But the hapless Bridges appears to have all the backbone of a jellyfish.

Rather than meet his best efforts with appreciation, on his way out the door, students jeer him: “Hey George, get the f*** out of here!” “Hey George, catch you on the flip side playboy!”

It is high time that American students, faculty, and administrators who do not subscribe to the views of this loud and obnoxious minority begin to speak up.

We should all be thankful that, even on a campus like Evergreen State, there are still a few Bret Weinsteins left in the world.

David Unsworth is a Boston native. He received degrees in History and Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis, and subsequently spent five years working in real estate development in New York City. Currently he resides in Bogota, Colombia, where he is involved in the tourism industry. In his free time he enjoys singing in rock bands, travelling throughout Latin America, and studying Portuguese.